The Writing Prompt Boot Camp

Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 336

Last week, I mentioned three of my poems that were published in issue two of By&By Poetry on January 1 (click to read the poems). This week, I had a poem published on page eight of the debut issue of Englyn, a journal of 4-line poems. There are a few familiar names there. So be sure to check it out.

For today’s prompt, write a unique poem. But aren’t all poems unique? Like snowflakes, maybe they are. Use this prompt as you will, but I was thinking more along the lines of unique situations, unique people, or unique (fill-in-the-blank). So while your poem may be unique, maybe it could cover something or someone unique. Feel free to put your unique spin on it.

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Re-create Your Poetry!

Revision doesn’t have to be a chore–something that should be done after the excitement of composing the first draft. Rather, it’s an extension of the creation process!

In the 48-minute tutorial video Re-creating Poetry: How to Revise Poems, poets will be inspired with several ways to re-create their poems with the help of seven revision filters that they can turn to again and again.

I found you on my morning screen, a hand
reaching through water composed of cyber-
space. Your hand. We’re friends as poets –
artists – all are friends and fellow-travelers.
We’ve never met. But here’s your hand
extended, hand of the ancient sea-man, trident
fingers furrowing a stream, a trail through
the fluid plane mirage’d as tundra. Tiny
humans trudge across its horizon like a text
in script, lines tiding above permafrost,
bedrock, or is it dream? I take your cyber-
hand, offering the screen I saw last night by
TV satellite: a city sitting atop a septic
river subterrane, offal screening through dark
soil to wash it clean. As I gloss the image,
we are fellow-travelers of earth air water
and all the spaces in between.

My fall upon oysters
Twas rather unique
I lucked out and cut
neither right nor left cheek
I cut neither nether one
Just both of my hands
My blood mingled freely
With water and sands
I cut up my t-shirt
My friend tied the strips
My wife did the butterfly
Plus love from her lips
So now I’m all healed I’ll
Go fishing once more
I might be more careful
To find the firm shore

though I try not
to treat every guy
like he was the last one
it’s hard sometimes
so I remind myself
each one is as unique
as a snowflake in winter,
a falling leaf in autumn
or a blossoming flower
in spring

Give her a chance
She might be a freak
Maybe she can dance
No one knows what’s hiding in her closet
spilling from her sorrowed song
She has a wand, she’ll paint the sky her own
shade of cobalt and chartreuse
She sings, she’s a little twisty
a mystery, her laugh off-key
Everyone goes right and she goes left
a little out of step
She’s the scribbles that don’t make sense
Tilt your head to appreciate her art
the slender arc, of different

Uniquely Done
Unique in how he thinks;
She believes his is a beautiful mind.
Not filtering what he feels; though his passion is strong and real.
Wanting to honor my virtue, heart, and home.
But, uniquely I desire to be found.
Grindiing in learning who I am meant to be, grounded in who I am.
Losing myself in him, but taking Me along is my ultimate ideal.
In a unique quandary; wanting to be with him and lose myself in his folds and be revealed.
By Pamelap

I stole the cool moon and the stars.
They sobbed but still I packed them tight
and squeezed the moon to make her fit;
then I shuffled away in dark.
Unknown to me the silent moon
had thawed and soon, as streams of white,
was trickling out of my trunk
and forming myriad moons behind—
unreal as flakes glaringly lit,
a line of lunar infants laid
as though Hansel and Gretel’s crumbs
for parts of her to find their way
back home to blanket of the night
that needs the moon as she the dark.

She was the Lutheran minister’s wife and Home Economics instructor,
a perfect combination for that small Montana town.
We became friends after she gave a demonstration of how
to use a microwave at the local hardware store.
I never made cupcakes in my new appliance but
learned a lot about her when once she said, with great sincerity,
I’ve never been pretty, then quickly continued to save me from a lie,
but I think when I’m really old I’ll go to New York City or
maybe Hollywood and become a character actor.
I suspect beautiful stars, even in later years, will never want
to take roles for ugly, old crones and witches. I should get lots of work.
Now I think of her as I watch programs with aged, time-worn
women, but haven’t recognized her yet, and scanning the
credits is useless, because I just can’t remember her name.

Helicopter parents hover around
their extraordinary, brilliant offspring
whose praises are the only songs they sing.

“My special snowflake is Ivy League bound!”
“My unique starfish is going to be king!”
Helicopter parents hover around.
Their extraordinary, brilliant offspring,

genetically modified to astound,
are dependent on them for everything.
Oblivious to what is happening,
helicopter parents hover around
their extraordinary, brilliant offspring
whose praises are the only songs they sing.

they made fun of the way she spoke
and her goth clothes – not posh
enough for their snobbish palettes
yet still everyday she walked
fiercely down the hallway
to the beat of her own drum
it was that unique spirit
that drew me to her side
that day in the cafeteria

(I penned this on Tuesday, and then saw your prompt and wonderful poem, Robert. But we can’t have too much of Bowie, can we?)

Let’s Dance with Bowie

Mime
the me,
zig-zag
the popular
for a palette,
politely steal
a motif
stuck on repeat
for a grand entrance.
Become an opera.
Immortalize
the red shoes
that could exhaust you.
Swirl like a black star
skirting the earth.
Unsettle your dust.
Fall without failing
to expand.

Thank you! He was an artist, theatrical in music, film and persona. I recently learned that he studied mime. If I’ve conveyed his creative spirit – as you say, a sense of controlled wilderness – then I’m honored.

I have a niece.
A typical spoiled brat.
Rich child.
Snob.
Forgettable girl.
Everyone caters to
appease her each and
every whim.
Pouty face.
Demanding attention.
It’s hard to tolerate
coexisting in her space.

My other niece
happily exists in
her own mind
part of the time.
Inherently unique,
her hugs are exuberant,
her laughter infectious,
her smiles breathtaking.
Such a lovely girl,
we give her space
when her autism
demands a break.

Even cowgirls get the blues,
skinny legs and all. A little
Jitterbug perfume goes a long
way. If you stay with me,
together we can look for
another roadside attraction.
What is your reaction to wild ducks
flying backward? If you stare
at a still life with woodpecker,
you might find a plate
of Tibetan peach pie, a favorite
of fierce invalids home
from hot climates.

Our shabby revival children’s chorus
Turned out Monday at the old-timey church,
Belted “Deep and Wide” for the guest preacher
Under fluorescent lights in mid-August,
Opaque glass windows revealing nothing
Of what we were missing at that moment,
World masterfully darkened, neglected–
Shallow theology’s conscious choice.
The first shaky number over (relief),
We awaited the next cue: Would it be
“Father Abraham” or “This Little Light of Mine”?
No. He declared it would be of God’s love,
As our Father adores us uniquely.
Tan finger choosing me, the preacher asked,
“Did you know there’s no one just like you
in the whole world?” And the chuckles stunned him,
For he had never been wrong about that.
My twin sister was just playing hookey.

They say that every snowflake is unique but
doesn’t unique lose its meaning when there is
nothing ordinary to make it special?

For two to be the same, to share a
crystalline structure, each frozen drop of water
forming into identical geometrical structures as
they fall from the sky, sharing a moment together before
they fall to the earth and melt or are crushed underfoot
would be far more special than duplicitous uniqueness.

I would like to find a person whose fingertips share
the same whorls as my own, the loops identical so
that when they touched each each ridge would fit
into the other, our fingers puzzles that are complete
only when pressed together.

The uptown rebelled today
Evicted its tenants and filled their hovels with shovels, full
A frosty beer morning, lined with stir-sticks and hooded hunchbacks
The cleaners, plowers, and snow-removal experts on their coffee breaks
The season a marathon, not a sprint
A long haul race, not a shunted hit and run
Nothing new or strange in the air, unless you are a new refugee in this city of cast-offs
Loyal to the bone, the striplings at home
Their curiosity and wonder not crushed by ice but by Steam

Like a fingertip or iris, every zebra
wears uniquely patterned stripes
over their black skin. Intricate
weavings forged by jungle years
and genes, the rugged brush and
the need to survive beyond the herd
on African plain and mountain.

A study in simplicity with their single
hooves, their kin are horse and donkey,
the plainness of black and white their
protection, the positive and negative,
the reciprocal and inverse never once
repeated across their broad backs.
To roam yet by the thousands, there
is an advantage to being the only.

He died a few days ago,
although you might not
know who he was.
It’s possible no one did.
But I keep his changes
with my other skeletons.
Sing along with the wireless.
His voice changed the moon,
spilled space into a song, and
he’s still in my head. Still
stepping in the present.
I’ll remember that he smiled
with the whites of his eyes.